THE STEWARD.  Aye, I could hear her through the door a while back.

BEN (tiptoes over to the door and listens).  She’s cryin’ now.

THE STEWARD (furiously—­shaking his fist).  God send his soul to hell for the devil he is!

(There is the noise of someone coming slowly down the companionway stairs. THE STEWARD hurries to his stacked-up dishes.  He is so nervous from fright that he knocks off the top one, which falls and breaks on the floor.  He stands aghast, trembling with dread.  BEN is violently rubbing off the organ with a piece of cloth which he has snatched from his pocket, CAPTAIN KEENEY appears in the doorway on right and comes into the cabin, removing his fur cap as he does so.  He is a man of about forty, around five-ten in height, but looking much shorter on account of the enormous proportions of his shoulders and chest.  His face is massive and deeply lined, with gray-blue eyes of a bleak hardness, and a tightly clenched, thin-lipped mouth.  His thick hair is long and gray.  He is dressed in a heavy blue jacket and blue pants stuffed into his sea-boots.

He is followed into the cabin by the SECOND MATE, a rangy six-footer with a lean, weatherbeaten face. The MATE is dressed about the same as the captain.  He is a man of thirty or so.)

KEENEY. (Comes toward the STEWARD—­with a stern look on his face.  The STEWARD is visibly frightened and the stack of dishes rattles in his trembling hands. KEENEY draws back his fist and the STEWARD shrinks away.  The fist is gradually lowered and KEENEY speaks slowly.) ’T would be like hitting a worm.  It Is nigh on two bells, Mr. Steward, and this truck not cleared yet.

THE STEWARD (stammering).  Y-y-yes, sir.

KEENEY.  Instead of doin’ your rightful work ye’ve been below here gossipin’ old woman’s talk with that boy. (To BEN fiercely) Get out o’ this, you!  Clean up the chartroom. (BEN darts past the MATE to the open doorway.) Pick up that dish, Mr. Steward!

THE STEWARD (doing so with difficulty).  Yes, sir.

KEENEY.  The next dish you break, Mr. Steward, you take a bath in the Bering Sea at the end of a rope.

THE STEWARD (tremblingly).  Yes, sir.

(He hurries out.  The SECOND MATE walks slowly over to the CAPTAIN.)

MATE.  I warn’t ’specially anxious the man at the wheel should catch what I wanted to say to you, sir.  That’s why I asked you to come below.

KEENEY (impatiently).  Speak your say, Mr. Slocum.

MATE (unconsciously lowering his voice).  I’m afeard there’ll be trouble with the hands by the look o’ things.  They’ll likely turn ugly, every blessed one o’ them, if you don’t put back.  The two years they signed up for is up to-day.

KEENEY.  And d’you think you’re tellin’ me somethin’ new, Mr. Slocum?  I’ve felt it in the air this long time past.  D’you think I’ve not seen their ugly looks and the grudgin’ way they worked?